Military interrogates veteran about Agent Orange claims

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Steve House has been living in fear since the veteran broke ranks to clear his conscience.

"Your damn straight I'm scared," said House, a Valley veteran who revealed that he and other soldiers buried Agent Orange on a military base in South Korea. A key Colonel flew into the Valley for an intense five-hour meeting with House.

"When did you do it?" House said the colonel asked. "Where did you do it? Do you remember who was in charge? What was the chain of command? How much? Do you remember the labels? And what part of the base it came on?"

House told the colonel what he told CBS 5 Investigates when we first began investigating months ago: that the soldiers were ordered to dig a deep ditch with a flat base. The plan was to neatly stack the barrels, but once they realized the sand was too soft for that, they resorted to using a bulldozer to push the barrels into the ditch.

"I'd push it into the ditch so everything fell over and it was just laying there all jumbled," House said. And that could make the cleanup more difficult. "I think they were wishing they could go in there and dig it out and bring everything out nice and clean and in one piece," he said.

But finding the right location might require House and his fellow soldiers to return to Camp Carroll decades later -- a chance to make an old wrong, right.

"There was some mention if it came down to it, possibly getting all of us together and getting us on the site," said House.

He is admittedly cautious. "I've wanted the government to take care of this nightmare I've had to live with for the last 30 years. I don't want to poison kids or anything, and I don't want to hurt GIs," House said.

The U.S. Army acknowledged for this first time on Monday that it buried chemicals on the bases in South Korea three decades ago. CBS 5 News broke the story of military veterans burying government toxic waste last week.

Shortly after, protesters took to the streets outside the entrance to the U.S. military base Camp Carroll in South Korea and international media flooded the area.

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